Megan is in Korea!

Hello family! I made it safely to Korea and am emailing you from the mission office. It was great to talk to you and I'm excited to tell you all about my experiences! Love you all!!!!

Love,

Sis Liv

Week 9

me with my delicious cake

eating the cake with sisters in my zone

my korean name tag!

Helloooooo family!!!!

 

I leave for Korea in a matter of days...can you believe that?! I still can't fully believe it, but I am very excited!! This week has been kind of a crazy week compared to others becuase it was different from our normal schedule. First of all though, let me just say thank you for making my birthday so awesome! I had a great day ^^ (asian smiley face) The cake arrived that evening so I shared it with my district and the girls in my hall. It was a super delicious cake! Thanks for sending it! And the package from the family came on Saturday so it was fun to spread out the celebrations. I LOVE the shoes and the sweater and the dress! Thank you so much! Emily thank you for all of the cute cards and the pencil holder! It is so beautiful. I love it! Matt thanks for the deoderant :) Your creativity never ceases to amaze me. Also thank Max for me. I really appreciated his card. I'll send some more pictures from my birthday that I took later in the day. Thanks again though for making it such a great day!

 

On Tuesday our trio companionship got broken up, so that was kind of shocking and different. We weren't really prepared for it, so it was weird at first, but we still are together for most of the time. Another sister as added to our distric because she was on the fast track, but she is leaving for korea on the same day as us. So Sister Jacklin is now companions with Sister Choi and I am companions with Sister Wadsworth. We taught just the two of us on Wednesday and it was weird to only have two of us. But that's how it will probably be most of the time, so it's good to get a taste of both I guess. Tuesday afternoon class was awesome because Brother Madsen just answered our questions about the Korean culture and we all sat on the floor, like we would in Korea, and practiced eathing cheese-itz and sour patch kids with chopsticks. It was so fun! It got me way excited to go. On WEdnesday we discussed Christlike attributes during class and it was really great. EAch person in our distric had a different attribute that we studied about and preapared to discuss and then we shared it with the class. I studied about hope. I really enjoyed learning from everyone in the group. We also had infield orientation yesterday instead of normal class and study throughout the day. We learned about finding people and practiced talking to people on a bus or in the airport and situations like that. We also talked about planning, goals and the importance of working with the members. It was a long day, but we learned a lot. Today had mostly been filled with packing and trying to get all ready to leave early Monday morning.

 

Not much else happened. We've all just been trying to get as ready as we can for Korea. We are teaching our last TRC lesson tonight, so we are hoping that it will go really well. We are teaching one of our investigators for the last time tomorrow night. Tomorrow is our last day of classes, so it will be our last time to see our teachers. I'm going to miss them! Brother Madsen and McArthur have been the best teachers and I have learned so much from them. They are awesome.

 

I am excited to talk to you all on Monday!! I'm planning on calling Greg and Liss while I am still in SLC and then I will call the rest of the family during my layover in San Fransisco. Can't wait to hear your voices!!! Love you all so much!!!!

 

Love,

Livingston Chamae

 

p.s. we got our korean name tags this week as well. my name is pronounced ri-bing-su-ton. I'll send a picture so you can see our last name in Korean letters!!! So cool. I'm practically asian now ^^

Week 8

me and my companions at the temple

my comps and I with Sister Kim. She just left for Korea this week. She is so nice!!

the delicious cupcakes from Mark and Matt :)

Sis Jacklin and I enjoying our sweet rolls

My lovely friends and I (Both Sister Wadsworths, Sister Jacklin, Johnson, Matsen and Dixon)

Court and Jonathan sent me Agnes for my birthday :)

They decorated the room with sticky notes

Hello Kajok!!!!

 

GUESS WHAT?! I got my travel plans today!! I fly out of SLC at 5:35 am on July 29th. Then I arrive in San Fran CA at 6:36 am and I leave for Seoul Korea at 10:45 am and should arrive in Korea at 2:40 pm on July 30th. I leave so soon!!!! I'm kind of freaking out but mainly just really excited! So I'm trying to figure out when I should call you guys...what are your thoughts? Should I do it in Utah before I leave or in California during my layover? Dear elder me your thoughts. I excited to talk to you all!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE I WILL BE IN KOREA IN 2 WEEKS!!!! So cool :)

 

Thanks for all of the happy birthday wishes!!! It has been a great day. Who knew that turning 21 in the MTC would make you feel old?! haha. I received the package of delicious sweet rolls yesterday and I ate them for breakfast today. They were so good! All of my roommates and friends have been enjoying them as well. That was literally sweet of you all to be thinking of me :) I also received the mini speakers and they are so cute! Thanks!! I haven't received the package from the family yet, but it will probably come tonight or tomorrow. I got a package from Greg and Liss that I loved!! the mustache straws are hilarious and we will definitely be using those soon :) I also love the sporks. They are so cool! I think they will definitely come in handy for when the chopsticks get hard to use haha. Thanks for sending that to me Greg and Liss! I love you guys!!! I also got a package from Courtney and Jonathan Judd, which was super nice of them. Court included pictures from her wedding and all of her blog posts, which I am excited to read. My companions and friends have all be so sweet today! We enjoyed eating the sweet rolls together and they decorated the room with cute sticky notes and we are going to have a party with popcorn at some point. they are all the best! I have loved getting to know all of these awesome girls that are all going to Korea. We had a little district picnic and I shared some more sweet rolls with everyone. So far it has been a great day. Definitely a great way to turn 21 :) Tonight we are teaching at TRC again. We aren't skyping this week. Last week went pretty well, except for the fact that it was really hard to hear her because her microphone for skype wasn't working very well. So the language barrier and the sound barrier made it hard to understand her. She was a sweet girl though.

 

This past week has been good. Nothing too different or exciting to report. The devotionals were good as always. On Sundays we watch Music and the Spoken Word and I saw Marjorie playing in the orchestra! It zoomed in right close to her face. Also Carole Mikita spoke to us. She is a newscaster or something like that for KSL. It was a really sweet devotional. She talked about her family's conversion story. I really loved it. Tuesday devotional was Richard G. Hinckley. He looks and sounds a lot like President Hinckley. This devotional was broadcasted to MTC's across the world, which is cool. He talked about how we can be bold as missionaries because God has set us apart. He also talked about how missionary work is hard work so you just need to be tough and endure hardship. He told us that the greatest suffering a missionary can experience is regret. Mark Brown and Matthew sent me cupcakes in the mail this week and they were delicious! I felt really spoiled this week. Thanks Matt and Mark! That was so nice of you! I also got the drawings that Liss sent from her primary class. I loved them. Especially Matthew's :) Thanks for sending that to me Liss!! We had some really good teaching experiences this week. I have definitely felt the Lord helping me more in the past few lessons that I have been teaching. It's cool to go into a lesson with a lesson plan and then when we actually start teaching, we don't accomplish anything on our plan but we are able to help them come closer to Christ and understand the things that they need to. We also have been practicing street contacting in Korean lately. It is hard, but also kind of fun! We practice talking/teaching for 2 minutes one of the lessons from chapter 3 of PMG. I'm sure it will be way scary when I have to do it for real, but it will be okay. Everyone always talks about how much they appreciate people trying to speak Korean so I'm just going to do my best!

 

Love you all so much!! Thanks for thinking of me! I feel blessed to have been born into the best family ever 21 years ago. I am also feeling super grateful for all that Heavenly Father has blessed me with throughout my life and I feel honored to be serving Him at this time. The gospel rocks. I love it so much.

 

Love,

Livingston Chamae

Week 7

Hey family!!

First of all, can you believe that I have already been here for 6 weeks and that I am leaving for Korea in about 2 1/2 weeks?! So crazy!! I am getting way excited to head off to Korea. Although, somtimes when I really think about what I am about to do I get a little scared. But I know that the Lord has called me there for a reason so he knows I can do it. It has been another good week here at the MTC. Nothing too different or exciting happened.Today is Elder Jensen's birthday (he is in my district) so we had a district picnic and ate all of the treats and snacks that he got in his birthday package. It was fun. And tonight for TRC we are skyping people in Korea again. We did it last friday and it went better than I was excpecting. Right before we pushed the button to call them on skype I though my heart was going to beat out of my chest because I got way nervous, but once we started talking it was fine. Both people that we talked to were guys around our age that had already served missions and they knew english as well, so they were understanding and nice to us. We talked about how they can receive revelation through reading the Book of Mormon.

Sunday was good as always and that night Susan Easton Black talked to us. It was good. She was different than I was expecting. But she and her new husband talked about how we need to be bold as missionaries and we need to know for ourselves before we teach. They had BYU creamery icecream as usual that day for dinner,which was great because fast sundays can be a little long sometimes :) On Tuesday there was another great devotional by Elder Kendrick who is an ameritus seventy. He talked about personal revelation and prayer. How the Lord won't use a floodlight when a flashlight is sufficient in giving us revelation. It was a really good talk that helped me to learn more about what I should be doing in my prayers to make them more meaningful and I can be more prepared to receive revelation. Teaching our investigators is still going well. Both have committed to baptism, but we still have a lot to teach them. The past two lessons we've had have been really good. We taught one about the Word of Wisdom and asked him to live it. He said he would try but it would be really hard because he always goes out and drinks with his friends, but we promised that he would have greater peace and knowledge and confidence in this life if he obeys the word of wisdom. I suggested that he pick a different drink when he goes out with friends and he said that he would try that. Our other investigator we taught about the Holy Ghost. It was a sweet lesson because we are trying to bring less notes so we can be more in the moment and teach to their needs. We were trying so hard and being really sincere, which I think he felt. We promised him that with the Holy Ghost he will have God's help with him and he will be able to have success in this life, which is what he is looking for. It was a good lesson.  Yesterday we started practicing sharing a short 1 minute message that we would share while street contacting or on a bus and it was hard! It's hard to think of something that will make them want to listen and meet with you again in a minute. And now imagine trying to do that in Korean! I'll probably be able to say like 2 sentences in that amount of time. Oh well. It will come with time and practice.

I don't really have much else to report, but I am doing well! I am happy and excited to go to Korea. I'm a little nervous, but it'll be fine. I was happy to hear that you all are doing so well!

Mom, thanks so much for the package with the sugar cookies! It was such a fun surprise! Also they are from one of my favorite bakeries in provo and they were absolutely delcious! Everyone in my room also thanks you for them because we loved eating them. I appreciated the letters as well! It's always the best to hear from you all. I was excited to hear that Tara had her baby and that Sister Lacey also had her baby. So cute!

Love you all!! Keep up all of the good work!

Love,

Livingston Chamae

Week 6

Me with Sis Anderson

Me and my roommates, my companions and Sister Dixon and Sister Matsen

My district

Helloooooo Kajoke!

The weeks are flying by here. I feel like I just emailed you, but a lot of great things have happened this week. I love the gospel and being a missionary. It rocks. It's a lot of work, but it is great. On Sunday Sheri Dew spoke to us in Relief Society and it rocked. She told us 4 things that she wanted us to learn while we are on our missions. She said we need to learn who we are, deelpy understand who the Savior is, learn how to receive revelation and learn about God's power. She talked about how we need to be converted to the gospel and really understand those things and we will never fall away. It was a really good devotional. We also had a devotional that night that was good too. Probably my favorite thing about the MTC is all of the amazing devotionals we get to hear and participate in. I have learned so much. One thing I liked from the night devotional was that he talked about how everyone's testimony is unique so to make sure that you share your own testimony because that is what is going to be unique in your teaching of the gospel. For the church film that night we watched a devotional that Elder Bednar gave on Christmas at the MTC and it was INCREDIBLE!! It is called the Character of Christ. I don't know if Jessie or anyone saw it whie at the MTC, but this talk seriously changed my life and the way I think. I wish it were made public. But he talked about the importance of us understanding the character of Christ inorder to have faith in him. The character of Christ is that Christ turns out when we would turn in. He gave some examples from the scriptures like, when Christ was on the cross he was worried about his mother and the welfare of the world rather than himself. The natural man turns inward when christ would turn outward. So our goal in this life is to change our instincts to turn outward when we would normally turn inward. It was really good.

On tuesday Matthew O. Richardson of the Sunday School Presidency spoke and it was also way good.He read some from his own missionary journal entries and he talked about the saying of "what ere thou art, act well thou part" and how it applied to missionary work. It was really good. He talked about how we should read our missionary calls often because we have some pretty great blessings outlined in them as long as we follow its guidelines. It was fun to remember back to the day that I opened my call and my world was literally turned upside down. I would have never guessed Korea for myself, but especially lately, I just know that this is the right place for me to go. I love Korea and am so excited to serve there!

The fourth of July was really great here in the MTC! I was glad to hear that you all had such a fun 4th of July! Way to go for running that 5k mom, jessie, matt and em!! you looked good! Dad all of that food sounds delicious! maybe you should send some to me ;) thats so fun that you went to DC with the hartts! I'm a little jealous! But my day was really great here as well. We all wore our most patriotic clothing and Sister Wadsworth and I went with the other sister Wadsworth during gym time to play horseshoes and eat popsicles on the MTC field because we figured that's the closest we could get to participating in some of the 4th of july activities. It was really fun. She took some pictures so when I get copies I'll send them on to you. Our teacher Bro Madsen brought us 4th of July candy during class, which was so nice of him! And we had a special fireside that night and one of the branch presidncey people spoke about how our message is a message of freedom. We sang lots of songs and then we watched 17 Miracles!!! It was sooooo good! I obviously cried while singing Come Come Ye Saints and while watching the movie a) because it reminds me of Jessie on her mission so it was sweet b) that song has new meaning to me as I am serving a mission and c) that movie is just emotional because the Lord really does perform miracles! I am excited to be a part of them and witness them on my mission. After we watched the movie we got magnum ice cream bars and we watched the stadium of fire fireworks outside. It was great. Definitely a 4th of July that I'll never forget.

Korean is going well! I have a lot more to learn, but it is so cool to realize all that I have learned. Our teacher bro. Madsen told us yesterday that he was grateful that we were the kind of missionaries that qualified for the gift of tongues because he said that in other districts that he has taught it has taken a lot longer for them to grasp some concepts than it takes us. It was nice to hear because sometimes I don't feel like I know what I am doing, but I definitely know that it is through the Lord that I have been able to learn Korean so far. I'm glad that you enjoyed getting my testimony written out. I'm excited to keep learning and improving. Tonight we are doing TRC, but we got a notice that we are skypeing people in Korea!!!!!!!1 AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I'm a little scared. It's one thing to do it with people that I know can also speak english, but I'm sure it will be fine. We'll just do our best. I can't believe I'll be off to Korea this month! So excited.

That's pretty much what has happend this week. Everything is going well for me and I'm glad that everything sounds to be going well for you at home as well. I love you all and am thankful for your thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming :)

Love,

Livingston Chamae